What is real, what is a dream? Who cares as long as the feeling is so heavenly beautiful. If this is real I don't want to fall asleep again for fear of losing you when I wake up. If this is just a dream then... Don't Wake me Up!

BELOVED= /bɪlʌvɪd/ someone you love very much (it can also be pronounced /bɪlʌvd/). It may be a noun or an adjective:Adj- A beloved friend = a friend I love very muchNoun- My beloved, come with meThe surviving old pronunciation here (we usually still pronounce the E in the –ed ending) is because this word is a bit old fashioned but it is very common in the standard version of the English Bible (King James Bible), which is written in old fashioned English:“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God, and every one that loveth /lʌvɪθ/ is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love” (1 John 4:7-8)This same verses, in a modern English translations, say:“Dear friends, let’s love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The person who doesn’t love doesn’t know God, because God is love.” (NET Bible, 2006)

SUGAR /ʃʊgə*/

UR= (col.) You’re. /jɔ:*/The pronunciation suggested by the spelling UR is /ɜ:*/, but in very colloquial writing we can use U for YOU (same pronunciation).Also, the verb ARE is pronounced the same as the letter R, so we can use R instead of “are”:- U R Gr8 = you are greatSo we have:You are = U R = ur- ur here still = you are here still The correct order should be “you are still here”, but changing the order makes the STILL more emphatic.

GIMME= (col.) Give me.

I WASN’T FINISHED= I haven’t finished.- I’m finished = I have finished- I was finished = I had/have finished.The verb “to finish” is usually followed by –ING:- Have you finished cooking?- I wasn’t finished dreaming about your lips = I haven’t finished dreaming about your lips (= I was dreaming about your kiss, and now that I’m awake I want to continue kissing you because I didn’t have enough)

...YOU WON’T BELIEVE= (also: you wouldn’t believe it). We add this phrase to a statement to express the idea that it is something incredible (so difficult to believe):- It was so hot there, you won't believe (it)!- There is so much light in the city, you won't believe = that you can’t believe it’s real.

BEEN= I’ve been.In colloquial English we sometimes drop the subject, and sometimes drop the auxiliary verbs, but the context makes clear the subject is “I” (that’s why we can drop it) and the past participle (been) makes clear that there should be a “have” before, so you can drop the subject and the auxiliary and still the sentence makes sense.

NO TIME TO SLEEP= I have no time to sleep.Again we dropped the subject and the verb “have” (although in this case it is not an auxiliary)

UR= (col.) Your.As we commented above: You are = U R = urBut YOU’RE and YOUR are pronounced the same: /jɔ:*/- You’re Spanish- Your friend is SpanishSo if we can write UR for YOU’RE, then we can also write UR for the possessive YOUR. And this is what you can find here in the lyrics:- If ur heart ever fell out = if your heart ever fell out

UNLESS= If not.This negative connector is like IF but negative:- If you don’t come, I won’t give you this = Unless you come, I won’t give you this.

...UNLESS I’M FALLING FOR YOU = He’s talking about sleep, he doesn’t want to fall asleep, so when he says “I don’t wanna fall” we understand he means “I don’t want to fall asleep”. But then he says “unless I’m falling for you”. To fall for someone means “to fall in love with someone”, so he’s playing with the meaning of FALL here: In the beginning of the sentence we think it means “to fall asleep” but then at the end of the sentence we suddenly discover that he means “to fall in love” (=to start loving someone very much). The problem here is that grammar says both “falls” must mean the same, or the sentence would be incorrect, but meaning says that both “falls” are different, or the sentence wouldn’t make sense in the context of the story in the song. So this sentence is like a surreal bridge connecting to different ideas in one impossible sentence. Nice.

This song emphasizes how he deeply misses someone who is no longer with him in life, a girl who left his life and most likely expired. He's still madly in love with her and the only way in which he can be with her is in his dreams, the only place where he can truly be happy because, in a way, his brain makes him believe that they are still together, that nothing in reality matters as long as they are in their dreamland. Therefore, he doesn’t want anyone to wake him up as he constantly repeats the lines with much robust passion, "Don't wake me up", because he simply wishes not to wake up, to stay there with his love forever.

But at the same time, the illusion in his dream is so strong that he is not sure about what is reality and what is dreaming. Is he now dreaming or is he awake? This double-reality intertwined loop explains the apparent inconsistency in the lyrics: sometimes he wants to stay asleep ...

- If this love only exists in my dreams, don’t wake me up- too much light in this window; don’t wake me up- If I wake and you’re here still...

... and sometimes he’s trying hard to stay awake:

- Only coffee, no sugar inside my cup- (I’ve) been awake for some days now; no time to sleep- I don’t want to fall asleep, no

He’s living in two different universes, like all of us: the state of sleep and the state of being awake. In this situation, the act of falling asleep is simply the transition from one state to another, so “falling asleep” and “waking up” mean exactly the same, just a change of state. And in one of those two “universes” she’s gone and he is devastated.

Being asleep or being awake are not like two sides of the same coin, but two parallel universes, unconnected. True, one is conscious and the other one is unconscious, but while you are in them, both feel just as real, both feel “conscious”. Chris Brown is not sure which state is which. Is he now dreaming she’s still with him? Then if he wakes up she’ll be gone. Is she really with him now? Then every time he falls asleep he dreams she’s gone and his anguish feels just as real.

This philosophical canundrum is best expressed in an ancient zen story, a koan which goes like this:

"I, Chiang Tzu, dreamed that I was a butterfly until I awoke. Tell me, was I a man dreaming he was a butterfly, or am I a butterfly dreaming he is a man?"

But Chris Brown is not too worried about that, he’s puzzled, yes, but he doesn’t care much about what is real and what is unreal. He doesn’t know which state is the real one, but one thing he knows very well: In one of those universes she’s with him, and that’s the universe he doesn’t want to wake up from.

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